Horse, shooting competition blends pair of Old West skills

By SCOTT McMILLION Chronicle Staff Writer

LIVINGSTON - They make it look easy, the ones who do it the best.

And it doesn't take them long either, sometimes not much more than 10 seconds to cock, aim and shoot a pistol five times, bust five balloons, then switch guns and do it again.

The trick is you're doing all this on a galloping horse that's maneuvering through a course roughly the size of a barrel-racing pattern.

There's no room for mistakes. Miss a balloon, drop your pistol or lose control of your horse and you're out of the money.

But people love it.

"It's the most fun I ever had on horseback," said Joe Hartkopf, a participant from Roundup in this weekend's Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association regional finals competition here.

Like every contestant, Hartkopf was dressed in period costume from the late 19th century West.

The shooting competition is mostly about combining horsemanship and shooting skills, but it's also about looking the part. There was even a dress up contest during the three-day event.

The hardest part of the competition is "splitting your mind so you can ride your horse and concentrate on your shooting at the same time," said Suzey Beauregard of the Montana Wild Bunch, a mounted shooters group in Gallatin Gateway. "It's the focus."

And having a good horse.

"The horse is 90 percent of it," said Beauregard. "It takes a real seasoned horse to get real jazzed up for a few seconds, then relax for an hour."

Ear plugs help. Beauregard's horse wore them, as did many of the other mounts in the competition, to muffle the report of a .45 caliber pistol going off beside their ears.

The pistol shells are loaded with ground walnut shells or bits of corncob, projectiles that only travel about 20 feet, but the powder behind them is loud.

The event drew a meager crowd of viewers Sunday, but few people have heard about the sport, which is only 10 years old. Still, participants came from as far as Arizona and Arkansas.

The sport is harder than it looks, but a good hand can pick it up fairly quickly.

Wayne Biggs, of Rapid City, S.D., took it up two years ago after he retired following 33 years as a commercial airline pilot.

Now, instead of a blue uniform and a pilot's cap, he wears the full cowboy kit of hat and vest, boots and spurs, all offset by his long flowing gray hair.

Though he's a relative novice at the sport, he applied the lessons from a lifelong affinity for guns and horses and is now leading the nation in cumulative points.

His companion, Lynne Merrick, leads the nation in the women's division.

They spend much of the year bunked in the living quarters attached to their horse trailer.

Men's and women's divisions are each split into five skills classes and there are separate divisions for seniors and youths.

A total of 54 people competed over the weekend, which is a new event in Livingston and took place at the Park County Fairgrounds.

"We hope they'll come back next year," said Julie Brown, executive director of the Livingston Area Chamber of Commerce, one of the local sponsors.

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